NBA set ‘dangerous precedent’ allowing teams to target stars
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Philadelphia 76ers coach Doc Rivers says the NBA is setting a “very dangerous precedent” by allowing teams to bait star players into retaliatory fouls.
“If we’re going to start punishing the retaliators, and not the instigators, then we’ve got a problem in this league,” Rivers said Friday. “I think the league is setting up a very dangerous precedent right now.”
Rivers witnessed it firsthand on Thursday in the Sixers’ 102-97 Game 3 win over the Brooklyn Nets. Minutes into the game, Embiid received a flagrant foul one for kicking Nets big man Nic Claxton near the groin area after Claxton stared down Embiid and stepped over him following an alley-oop dunk. Claxton received a technical foul on the play and was later ejected after picking up his second technical for taunting Embiid.
“Teams are targeting the better player with instigation to get them thrown out and the better player has to be above and can’t retaliate,” Rivers said. “And so we are asking our stars to turn their heads a whole bunch more than they can at times. It’s a tough one for the league. I think they are in a tough place.”
GAME 3 RECAP: James Harden calls ejection ‘unacceptable’; Joel Embiid receives flagrant foul for kick
Game officials said Embiid didn’t receive a flagrant foul two and automatic ejection because of his “point of contact,” the same criteria that led to James Harden’s ejection in the third quarter after he appeared to strike the Nets’ Royce O’Neale in the groin area while trying to create separation with his left arm.
Rivers said Harden’s ejection was a “joke,” but Embiid’s kick could’ve “went either way.”
“Now that I’ve watched it. It really could’ve. I think he kicked him in the leg, actually. I don’t know if that’s where he was targeting or not. But don’t stand over him,” said Rivers. “We have these unwritten rules in hockey. … We need to create some in our league, and one of them is you don’t straddle a guy and stand over him. You just don’t.”
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